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Can you give an example of a sentence with あります, where you understand what あります means?
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EarthliŋJan 23 '14 at 12:59

I get something like this: あなたの町に日本のレストランが有りますか。 - Are there any restaurants in your city? あなたの家に猫がいますか。 - Do you have a cat at home? Are those questions above just really generic questions that I'm overthinking? Something like "What does your country have" seems too... strange to me.
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funfortehfunJan 23 '14 at 13:19

They are indeed just generic questions. Your textbook is asking "What is there at/in your school?" and is expecting a response like "There is football field at my school."
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EarthliŋJan 23 '14 at 13:45

@Earthling. I've tried amending it... adding some ways to translate using to have. Since it is such a common verb in Japanese which serves a few grammatical functions, it's quite hard to express it in a single way in English.
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virmaiorJan 23 '14 at 13:14